Tonight at 7:00 pm IST, the Chennai Super Kings lock horns with the Kolkata Knight Riders in the Final of the OPPO Champions League Twenty20 2014 at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
Ironically the tournament started with the Chennai Super Kings vs Kolkata Knight Riders and it will end with these top IPL teams taking on each other again. In that Group match at Hyderabad, the KKR pulled off a shock win over CSK owing to their batting depth with Andre Russell playing a stunning cameo.
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The CLT20 2014 Final as lots of people are saying is heavily loaded in favour of the Chennai Super Kings. And that is because the Kolkata Knight Riders have lost their bhramasthra (main weapon) with Sunil Narine banned from bowling because of getting reported twice for chucking.
Sunil Narine has been one bowler who has been very difficult to hit for most of the batsmen and in the death overs, this West Indian bags wickets so easily because of his mystery spin. Of course now the cricketing bodies are acting tough on these so-called-mystery spinners who have been taking unlawful advantage of their bent elbows.
The M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru has been a high scoring ground with the ball flying out of the ground easily because of the higher altitude of the stadium. CSK’s batting is extremely formidable and as we have seen in the semi final against Kings XI Punjab, the former can take the game away if its batsmen fire on all cylinders.
On the other hand, KKR doesn’t have that firepower in its batting line-up. Robin Uthappa has done well but he is not that world class. The unsung hero of KKR’s batting perhaps is Ryan ten Doeschate while Andre Russell can hit very long but can be very inconsistent. KKR’s strength has been its bowling which has been dominated by the spin bowlers. Without Sunil Narine in tonight’s final, it will be difficult for Gautam Gambhir to get four tight overs in the match which would have come by default from the mystery spinner.
Chennai Super Kings Squad: Dwayne Smith, Brendon McCullum, Suresh Raina, Faf du Plessis, Dwayne Bravo, Pawan Negi, MS Dhoni (C & WK), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ashish Nehra, Mohit Sharma, Mithun Manhas, Ishwar Pandey, John Hastings, Samuel Badree
Kolkata Knight Riders Squad: Robin Uthappa (WK), Gautam Gambhir (C), Jacques Kallis, Manish Pandey, Yusuf Pathan, Ryan ten Doeschate, Suryakumar Yadav, Andre Russell, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Pat Cummins, Vinay Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Sunil Narine, Manvinder Bisla